SomeNerd

Undergrad Institution: US Big State ~150 US News Math&Stats Dept Major(s): Mathematics Minor(s): Computer Science, Actuarial Science GPA: 3.85 Type of Student: International Female GRE General Test: Q: 168 (93%) V: 153 (60%) W: 3.5 (39%) GRE Subject Test in Mathematics: M: N/A TOEFL Score: N/A Grad Institution: N/A Concentration: N/A GPA: N/A Programs Applying: Statistics Research Experience: My school: 1) 1.5 years in engineering (some data science work), a 3rd author published IEEE conference paper, a 2nd author submitted 2) 1.5 years in atmospheric science, international conference presentation (poster). Other school: summer REU in biostatistics and statistical genetics in a small private college, 3rd author published conference paper, 2 oral presentations. Awards/Honors/Recognitions: school/dept scholarships every year in undergrad Pertinent Activities or Jobs: tutor for 1 summer Letters of Recommendation: 3 rec letters from all 3 advisers of research mentioned above. #1,2 not in the field of stats, #3 could be known by some dept, but not big name Math/Statistics Grades: all A's in Calculus sequence, real analysis sequence, mathematical statistics sequence, differential equations sequence, mathematical proof Any Miscellaneous Points that Might Help: got an A- in a graduate level numerical analysis class, not really related to statistics though. Was taking a graduate intro-level mathematical statistics when applied Applying to Where: Accepted: Ohio State University, Colorado State University, Baylor University, My undergrad department Rejected: North Carolina State University, University of Michigan, University of Texas Austin, University of Pennsylvania Still don't know what's going on...probably waitlisted/future rejection: University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Texas A&M University, Rice University, University of Florida Some reasoning behind picking the schools I picked: As you can tell, I really had no idea where I would end up. Average GRE and not top undergrad school definitely brought a lot of uncertainty to me. So I applied to a wide range of top/middle/low ranking schools, and big/small depts. I don't mind big cities nor small towns, but I did try to avoid west coast and New York b/c cost of living, and avoided most midwestern schools b/c I don't like brutal winters. Also, quite obviously, I tried to stay in Texas (applied to 5 Texas schools), but it seems they don't fit me. Interesting fact for those who are from a nowhere-close-to-top school: A girl that I am friend with (from same undergrad institution), had no research experience, but she's a top student, got accepted to UNC. No big name letters of rec either. So there are still chances here if you have your undergrad from a nowhere-close-to-top school and have no research experience. Side note: I think my research and good grades in math class weigh the most. Although my research is all over the place (from my naive attempts in other fields before committed myself to stats), and no 1st author publication, but they did at least bring me good letters of rec from the professors I worked with.

Well, the thing is, you don't have obligation to go to a university even if you have signed the contract. Obviously it is not a very nice thing to do, but they cannot stop you from quitting their program after accepting it and go to another one. I think that's what the department means.

From two of the big departments that I got accepted to, their fall semesters should start as normal. I have not heard anything about possible assistantships cancellation (well if that happens by any chance, I would be the last person to know anyways...) For the recession concerns, I don't know how the universities would be affected by it. My guess is that RA's funded by department, NSF or NIH would not be affected as much since the grant is from the government directly or indirectly (from student tuition for private institutions). But my guess is that some company contracted RA positions may be affected since they might even be firing their full-time employees as well. Again, these are just me guessing and making assumptions.

Thank you and good luck to you as well!

Do you mind letting me know who you contacted? I email stor_grad_adm@unc.edu but never got a response... Edit: I am asking about UNC contact

Last year my department has a decent amount of people just could not get visa at all because of sensitivity of stats, or STEM majors in general. They have been checked for months and the department gives them one year to get a visa. But this year there is pandemic, so I am not sure how it goes for those people. I am not sure about other departments, but I think people all understand the situation, but they gotta do what they gotta do. So far, from information I have got from a big-size stats department, they do not encourage me to go back to my home country due to the unclear situation. (Actually they called me and made sure I am currently in the US now). My friend (who's a CS major back in my home country and got into CS grad schools in the US) is also prepared to be deferred for a year. He said some early admits already got their I-20 and he have not got his yet. So he doubts if the school is putting delays on giving out I-20 due to current situation.

A deadline is coming up and still nothing from 5+ schools I applied to. I emailed them in Feb and all replies are pretty much "please wait" (I know emailing in Feb is a bit early but I had to do so for an earlier decision deadline). Some of them told me the results would come out in March but I really don't have the time to wait until March 31st. Others only gave generic answer like results will be out by April 15th or even May. Should I email them again? I feel bad for bothering them again and again but I don't want to accept an offer with question marks on 5+ programs I applied to.

Didn't apply to UCD, but got rejection very early from NCSU. I emailed TAMU and UNC in mid Feb and all they said was something along the line of "we're still reviewing applications and can't give an answer" UNC had their campus visit on Feb 21 (one of my friends went and told me they were about to send out 2nd round offers soon). Some mid-range schools like UTAustin told me they are about to send out 2nd round offers in March. So I guess there's definitely more coming. Tbh I have no clue about TAMU, they said they still sent out offers until May. Anybody here got accepted? What's their response deadline?

yes that sounds about right. Actually the department I visited was called "center for statistical genetics." Seems like a legit place to go, lots of good faculty & plenty of funding.

hahaha I lived here for 4.5 years, about to be 5. Not a good place to be in the summer but fall/spring/winter is not bad.

Emailed UT Austin and they said 2nd round offer will come out no later than the end of March. From record, Colorado State's 2nd round would come before or during the last week of March. So I guess they are all trying to make it before national response deadline April 15th at least.

although their biostats and stats are separate departments (actually pretty far from each other as well), their biostats did claim to be the #1 in the nation. I don't know where they get it from but that is what they told me when I visited past summer.

Since nobody has talked about TTU, I am going to mention it briefly (it is my undergrad institution). Stats is in the same department as math, on your diploma it is not a big deal to have a phd in math not in stats, everybody knows those departments are quite common. But prelims are not only restricted to stats, one of the prelims you have to pass is in math. Some people take complex analysis cuz it's ez (it's not a pure waste of time obviously since the math faculty there are great, but it is not THAT related to stats). The department lost three stats faculty last year due to different reasons, hired a new one but he is trapped in China for some family reasons. So not a whole lot of faculty to choose from and each of them are doing different topics, there is one doing biostats (from Ohio State, but has LOTS of students), two doing consulting, one doing machine learning/data science in general, don't remember about the rest from the top of my head. 16k minus tax minus student fees is the bare minimum to live in Lubbock as a single person. Lubbock is cheap, but 16k is really not a whole lot. Summer assistantship is available but competitive (new rule starts this summer I think). Btw if you want to come to TTU for its basketball game or Patrick Mahomes (JK I know you probably won't), game tickets are not included in the fees you pay so you have to buy tickets yourself.

Nope. I emailed them about 10 days ago, they said "The admissions committee is currently reviewing applications. We do not have a specific time frame as to when decisions will be made but if anything else is needed the committee will contact you directly." That's it. But on people's signature on this post I saw some declined offer from UF.

Thank you for sharing your prospective! That is a good point that you made. I will think about it.

I have applied to some grad programs but they have not said anything back to me yet. Spring break is about to come and I am hoping to visit my friends, and I am also hoping to visit some graduate programs that have not rejected me or accepted me. So far I have not received any campus visit day invitation from the schools that I want to visit during spring break. Is that okay if I email the department notifying them about my person visit? (The trip will be totally on me.) Should I request to speak with graduate program director or graduate students? I know it is probably extra work for the department to host me outside the visit day, but I really want to visit my dream school. Please share tips or experience if you have any. Thanks in advance!

I have heard success stories from both English dept (will not discuss here since it is far from stats), and stats dept. Fortunately, I know a friend from where I get accepted into, and he had a success story there. He was trying to make decisions between one place with higher stipend, lower living cost, and the other place with lower stipend, higher living cost (the dept he negotiated). He was having a hard time deciding and he was told by his undergrad stats prof (also research adviser) to negotiate. He simply emailed the admission chair about the situation and got some additional fellowship on top of that. The story is pretty recent, from about two years ago. I will not mention the dept name here but it is definitely doable in this case. Since I am on the same boat as he was two years ago, so it is probably doable for me as well (dept admission chair is still the same person). This is just an example of success, but I don't know what if you fail. If that dept is the dept that you finally decide to go to, I would not risk upsetting the chair/professors by annoyingly begging for some more money. I think maybe just being super polite and straight to the point in your email would help.

SAME! At least I hope I am waitlisted since they have not rejected me directly. Fingers crossed for top of the waitlist and hopefully some results will come before my response ddl's.

mathprograms.org has a decent amount of REUs posted, math orgs like MAA, AMS also have a lot of summer research programs posted.

congrats! I emailed them yesterday they said my application is still in queue. My former co-worker is in the program and from our previous conversation, he said the prelims are after the first semester and second semester. Fort Collins is a nice place to live in (it's Colorado!), but I also heard from other friends that Colorado is expensive like New York and California.

UIUC said the result will come out within 2 weeks

well said bayessays! Thank you for sharing the tips!

totally off the topic (but somewhat related to the topic i guess): how do you guys manage your stress/anxiety of waiting on schools? I got some rejects and offers (but not my dream schools) and the longer I wait the more anxious I get... tried to get distracted from this by focusing on school work but it didn't help much. Any tips?

Hi Cotopaxi, I am also an undergrad applying for stats phd fall 2020 so I cannot comment on your application profile. But I am a math major who have taken real analysis so I can say something about this part. It seems like you have not taken any mathematical proof class so you may want to learn proofs before you do real analysis. I do see some departments put real analysis as recommended prerequisites so I guess it is better for you to have those material learned. I don't know what an online real analysis class look at and to be honest, people learn in different ways. You may learn just by reading the textbook or you may have to sit in a class and learn it from someone who explains it well. The text book I used for my real analysis class is "Introduction to real analysis" by Bartle and Sherbert. You can take a look and see if you can just understand it from reading or you need some explanation. You can also reach out to the real analysis professors at your previous schools, send them an email asking for self-teaching books or online class recommendations.

Hi all, I am applying for stats phd programs with my bachlors degree in math. I do not have math subject GRE score but my general GRE Q is 168. And I have all A's in my upper level math classes. I am planning to have all 3 of rec letters from the professors I have only done research with. I have not taken classes with any of my rec letter writers. Is that okay not to have a letter commenting on my academic ability? Thanks in advance for your help!